Category Archives: policy

On Sunday afternoon someone forwarded me a story from the Guardian saying top UK environmental scientists were being told to use their skills to help “de-risk” oil firms drilling in polar regions. I was a bit shocked. And sceptical. Reading a bit further, the drilling thing is a bit of a jump, but there is still a fair bit to be concerned about.

It’s the final bullet point in point 19, page four of this document (pdf) though it’s worth reading in the section (or whole document) in full, as well as extra reporting from the Guardian’s Terry Macalister, especially the claim that Duncan Wingham, (NERC’s chief executive) feels under pressure to ensure they’re providing value to the UK economy.

I was fuming, and had a bit of a rant on Comment Is Free. To summarise my three main objections: 1) They hope to “de” risk? Oh, please. 2) Stop with the creeping privatization already. 3) The spirit of the 1959 Antarctic Treaty is kinda lovely. We should extend, not erode, it.

The defensive claim that NERC scientists are pressured to demonstrate value for the UK economy especially irked me. It’s just plain unimaginative. There are a variety of ways science might support the economy, it does not necessarily mean supporting the oil industry. Moreover, there are a variety ways to show value, not just to the economy. Academics often complain about “the impact agenda” (there was the mock funeral for British science thing, and then the arts and humanities and the big society fuss), but working to ensure your research has impact is a lot more than listening to what the more powerful industries want of you. Or at least it should be. The idea that “demonstrating impact” is simply a matter of crawling up to oil, arms and car manufactures might be a myth some people would like propagate, but it doesn’t have to be the case (this is the official line, if you’re interested).

As I’ve argued before, I worry we’re sleepwalking into a position where more and more of the innovation process is captured by rather narrow interests of a few powerful industries. I wish academics would reach out to the public more, I suspect they’d find a more diverse set of ideas about their work.

Honestly, I think this story is a case of a single badly written document. But it’s worrying such naivety exists and people at NERC feel this way. As a friend wrote on Facebook: “No wonder our politicians don’t try to interfere with the research councils, they’re perfectly capable of interfering with themselves” (though I do wonder a bit about the pressure they are under here, I would like to know more).

Clarification: there’s a line in the first paragraph of that CiF post that’s incorrect. I say the document in question is NERC’s submission to a recent government consultation on merging research centres, when it’s their own consultation It was a last minute edit from something that was more accurate but confusing if you didn’t know the context. I should have replaced it with something better though, for which I apologise.

I had a couple of visits to Broadcasting House this week, talking about the ethics of crowd-funding science on the World Service and Radio 4.

Both pieces were based on a discussion of the Petridish website, but there’s scope for scientific work via Kickstarter too, and Cancer Research UK have a special frundraising stream called MyProjects which works on a similar microfinance model (NY Times piece on this last year). It’s a sort of spin off of the idea of the long tail – using the web to make niche markets workable – albeit asking for the money in advance. Put your research proposal online and ask people to pledge what they can to support it. If you get enough pledges to go ahead, you take the money and get going. I suppose we could think of it as diffused patronage.

Petridish promises to democratise science. By asking people what they want to bid for, they give people the sort power over science funding normally reserved for scientists, politicians or the very, very rich. This is also what worries a lot of people: surely only the prettiest or emotionally resonating science will get funded? (there is a lot on cancer and space). Personally, I’m open to the possibility we might be pleasantly surprised by the public in this respect. Pitch non-obviously interesting science to the people, see what happens.

There’s also a suggestion that crowd-funding provides opportunities for greater public engagement, but I have a lot of questions about how and what kind of engagement is on offer. The website mentions photos of research matter, naming rights for new discoveries, dinner with scientists or artefacts from field trips. Still, I know many citizen projects inspire developed public engagment off the back of rather passive data collection tasks. Maybe the exchange of a bit of money for a artistic photo of some cells could similarly lead to a greater sense of ownership and involvement in science which in turn sparks something more too. I guess we’ll have to see.

One of the questions I was asked by the BBC but didn’t make the edit was whether this model, because it lies outside of formal peer review structures, will lead to bad science? Maybe. Petridish only accept projects based in universities, non profits or other research institutions to ensure quality (ok, “non profits” in particular os a broad church though). I think it’s worth remembering that any scientist will want to maintain their credibility and be looking to publish papers in high impact papers. There are sanctions of the scientific community at work here, and they’re much larger than any individual project. Maybe I’m wrong. Again, we’ll see.

For me the biggest question is whether you can really raise the sorts of funding 21st century science needs in this way? I wonder if there is a profound disconnect between the thinner ends of the long tail and the simple bigness of a lot of contemporary science. A commentator on my last Guardian piece suggested kickstarter as a way to fund the Experimental Lakes Area. I can see the attraction for scientists with small to medium sized projects, but I’m not sure it’s scalable. I also don’t think it provides the sort of long-term sustained funding much scientific research requires. That said, arguably medical research charities have been doing a sort of microfunding for years: sponsored marathons, etc. Maybe universities can make it work too.

There is also, quite simply, the taxation system, which I suppose we could describe as funding from the crowds. For me, this is where the key ethical question comes in. You don’t have to be a Gates or a Grantham to get to fund science via Petridish but you do need a bit of spare cash and probably some prior interest. It’s only ever going to be a limited public. If you really want to democractise science, crowd-funding looks like a poor alternative for tax-funding to me. Whether you agree probably comes down to broader political beliefs though (I quite like paying tax and I have faith that we can make the research councils better).

I have a post on Comment is Free arguing this week’s protests by scientists in Canada are not just a local issue, but of global concern. Modern science is a global enterprise: people from all over the world have studied at the Experimental Lakes Area (currently threatened with closure). It’s also a global concern because the biggest tensions seem to surround environmental issues with global impact: the Experimental Lakes Area is where where the first evidence for acid rain came from. Plus, there are multinational industries and NGOs involved, and that’s without delving into any intersections with defence policy (cough, polar hawk purchases, cough). We can’t pretend Canadian science is simply a Canadian matter any more than we can divorce the natural world from political decisions.

I also wanted to stress a need for democratic engagement. These protestors held banners proclaiming “No science, no truth, no evidence, no democracy”. They did so partly because they worry corporate interests are clouding public debate, especially around energy policy (see, for example, Robin McKie on this back in February) and want to offer science as a way out of corrupted discourse. Still, it’s important scientists bring the public with them when they make proclamations like this; share their ideas and show how the public value science. Otherwise they’re just demanding people listen to them, and I’m not sure how democratic that is.

Thinking about that question of democracy made me reflect back on the Rio +20 summit last month. Reading the various requiems for these talks, the key message seems to be that our leaders have failed us but there is hope in public activism. Mary Robinson has some strong words on the topic. Even the chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says we need look beyond governments. Part of me is really inspired by statements like that. Part of me’s still cynical.

I dug out Naomi Oreskes’ LA Times oped from January, where she argues the need for leadership on climate issues. I didn’t like it when I first read it. She seemed to give in to a top down approach to science in society which just doesn’t sit well with me. Re-reading it now I want to shout “ha, well look at your leaders now, ner-ner-ner-ner”. But I take her point sharing esoteric expertise isn’t that simple. It’s also hard (impossible?) to do public engagement at the scale of global population.

John Vidal cites the emergence of “eye catching bottom up initiatives” as some reasons to be cheerful after Rio+20. I’m really not sure his examples are the best ones. I think they are projects that were launched at Rio, not ones that emerged. They look like rather downstream invitations to passive engagement within a pre-set frame, more about enumerating the actors of PR than diffusing political power. I felt echos of Steve Yearley’s argument (e.g. 2008) that the green movement enjoys the rhetoric of mass participation but only on their own terms. Maybe that’s ok, they are campaigns after all, but lets not kid ourselves into imaging we’ve found a new type of politics. Yet.

Last week I co-organised a debate on science and growth, one of a regular* “Science Question Time” seminars.

The idea that science might equal growth is something which has dominated UK science policy discourse for several years (e.g. David Willetts’ first speech as Science Minister). But can the government pick winners, and how can we ensure public coffers benefit from such public investment? Perhaps we need to think in different terms entirely – should we be looking to technology for sustainability, rather than growth? Is an unrelenting focus on growth a bit irresponsible? (see, for example, the Royal Society’s recent People and the Planet report).

We brought together a panel consisting ofPenny Attridge (SPARK Ventures), Rebekah Higgitt** (National Maritime Museum/Royal Observatory), Mariana Mazzucato*** (SPRU, University of Sussex) and James Meadway (new economics foundation), chaired by Jack Stilgoe (University of Exeter) and involving a diverse audience largely drawn from science, policy and journalism for what turned out to be an exciting and lively debate.

Yes, exiting and lively, about innovation policy, really and truly, I promise. It was even funny at times. You can listen to a podcast of the event for yourself:

* The last event was in March, on nuclear policy. You can also listen to a podcast of this event. That was played over 120,000 times, so it must be good (nothing to do with it having been Boing-ed, not at all…).

** Becky’s written up her notes for the evening with some good links on her blog.

*** Professor Mazzucato’s contribution was dominated by questions of rebalancing the economy (and what we might mean by this) with a particular focus on the capturing of structures and rewards of innovative labour by the financial sector. You can read her report on this for the Policy Network, published yesterday (see also her piece for the Guardian).

One result of the recent wave of anti-GMO protests seems to be an outpouring of debate over whether the green movement is “anti-science”. The latest to cross my laptop screen was a blogpost from Adam Ramsey, arguing the Green Party are actually more pro-science than their competitors; they just need to be better at expressing this. Ramsey puts his position neatly:

I joined the Green Party in 2001 because I had been weaned on science. As a child, it was terrifying to read reports of the amassing evidence of dangerous climate change, resource depletion, planetary destruction.

It’s an experience many of us born in the 1980s can identify with. Moreover, the role of science in inspiring commitment to green politics is something which has run through movement since the publication of Silent Spring fifty years ago (and before). He goes on to point out that it’s not scientific work that is the target of anti GMO activists, just that particular application of it. I was enjoying the piece until I got to the end where he joked “Anyone up for occupying BIS in support of the Haldane Principle?”

I rolled my eyes and left a slightly grumpy comment stressing the Haldane Principle is a bit of a myth and inviting greens to aim to be cleverer on research policy. I was maybe being a bit unfair though. In fact, arguably, it’s a clever line for Ramsey to conclude with.

The Haldane principle is, loosely (and it is normally used very loosely…) about academic freedom. It’s used to express the idea that academics should decide what to spend at least a chunk of research funds on, without interference from political, cultural or economic pressures. This is relevant because the bulk of Ramsey’s post – as with much of the anti-GMO discussion – is a concern that science is being used to serve economic interests he thinks are dangerous. I can see how the Green Party, especially the redder ends of it, might worry about corporate interests narrowing the choices for direction of science and, as a result, look to policy ideas which promise something more honest. I think it’s an overly Romantic view, but I can see why it is tempting, especially considering BIS’ oh-so-subtle decor (pictured, scroll down for more).

As many keep pointing out, the target of the latest wave of anti-GMO protests, Rothamsted Research, is publicly funded. It’s on the top line of Sense About Science’s page on the researchers’ appeal. And so it should be. It’s an important point. Go, read the corporate information bit on the Rothamsted website. But don’t do so naively. Government funded researchers are routinely encouraged to do work which will spin off to commercial profit. Such encouragement is complex and negotiated at many different points along the research-building process. It varies depending on subject area and research centre, and over time. It’s not necessarily, in itself, a bad thing either. But it’s there. Science policy wonks sometimes talk about the emergence of “Mode 2“, context-driven, research in the latter half of the 20th century, or a “triple helix” where the interests of state, industry and academia are complexly interconnected. We have a strong history in the UK of providing funds for work which does not have obvious ends – see Rebekah Higgitt for an introduction to the history of this – but that doesn’t mean interests aren’t there and it certainly doesn’t mean Rothamstead is “pure” research. I don’t want to paint a picture of government funded GM research as a secret front for biotech industry (though this blogpost in an entertaining read), but imagining the BBSRC are magically pure is just as naive as assuming geneticists are evil monsters. Publicly funded research doesn’t exist in a political vacuum any more than a field of wheat exists in an environmental one.

All research is directed in some way. Scientists and their administrators make decisions around their work all the time, for social, cultural, ideological, political, personal, bureaucratic and historical reasons as well as economic ones. Sometimes the reasons are good, sometimes they are bad, often its debatable. The question is who gets to see and be involved in these debates. I think researchers should have a big role, but I also think the public could be involved more (a post last month on this). The Green Party are worried about the direction of scientific research, they should be pushing for meaningful public engagment (this happens already, but there could be more). Keep science public by involving the public. Extend and open up peer review, don’t hide behind it.

Adam Smith (no, not that one, or that one, or that one, the science writer one) has a new series of posts for the Guardian on science policy starting today. His first post raises several questions, including who should set the goals for science? Scientists themselves? Or politicians? How might the public be involved in this?

I think we should open up these sorts of questions more to the public. There’s a long history of science communication in the UK, but we tend to focus on the stuff science tells us about the world, not the politics of science itself. Popularisation of scientific ideas is all well and good – sometimes important, sometimes fun, sometimes both – I’m glad we do it. But I want more public debate about the politics and structures of science too. I’d like to live in a society where we have more public debate about the science we could have, not just the science we’ve been given.

Obviously we don’t know what science we’ll have until we try some. The public can’t just present science with a shopping list “vaccine for cancer, anti-baldness pill, spray on cleverness and ever-lasting pollution free fuel, thanks”. Setting the goals of science isn’t about controlling what scientists find, only what they choose to look at and how. This happens already, so I think it should, as much as possible, happen in the open with the public involved. We can’t say what science should find, but we can discuss what challenges science might try to address, what questions it might ask and what we might do with the multiple choices which new technologies provide us (for more on the last of these, see this old post on the history of fridges). You can’t have a referendum on whether the Earth is Flat, but we can have a discussion about whether checking the Earth is flat or not is something we want to be doing.

I suggested more public engagement with science funding at Lord Taverne’s Sense About Science lecture last week (audio). Taverne had joked that the public trust scientists as long as their not funded by industry or the government, and I suggested that maybe then, we needed more public engagment with science funding. Taverne’s response wasn’t especially satisfactory – I wondered if he’d heard me properly – as he seemed to say we might have to give up on public funding of science entirely and rely on the Wellcome Trust. I find that quite depressing. I’m not sure I’m ready to give up of the public funding of science yet, and I stand by the idea that we could try to involve the public in this process (indeed, never know, the latter might help us support the former).

Science policy is very dry. It’s full of a lot of dull discussion about the geekier everyday ends of science and an awful lot of bureaucracy. If I was feeling cynical, I might argue that it suits a fair few policy makers and scientists to keep this debate so dry as a way to keep public scrutiny out. That might be unfair. Still, science funding could actually be one of the most exciting areas of science storytelling, if we let it. A few people have started looking into public engagement projects (The IFR at Norwich, Cobi Smith in Canberra) and research councils increasingly include a range of ‘lay’ members of peer review panels. As I’ve argued before, in terms of upstream science journalism, I think it’d make good stories for science media too.

I’ve always thought that CP Snow line about scientists having the future in their bones was a tad overblown, but there is a truth in there somewhere, and it’s an exciting truth I’d like to share with more people. Deciding our future, as best as we can, shouldn’t be left to the privileged few.

Last month, Ed Davey, Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, gave a speech about “climate security” (full text on DECC site)

Climate change is about increased risk: of extreme events, of natural disasters, of changes in weather patterns.

As our understanding of the climate grows, so does our understanding of what those risks might mean for our people.

Around the world, governments – and militaries – are planning for climate instability. From flood defences to foreign aid, climate security is part of the policy discussion.
But it’s not yet part of the public discussion.

And that’s something that we have to change.

We need to get people to engage with climate security; to understand what it means to be climate resilient in an interdependent world. Because at the moment, it’s too easy to discount the danger.

I’m all for getting the public more engaged with issues of climate change, but I’m also a bit sceptical about this move towards dubbing environmental policy issues matters of security. It’s not just climate. Everything seems to be about security these days: food, energy. I can see the advantages to this sort of framing, but I can also see downsides too. Maybe I’m wrong though, I’d be interested to hear what others think.

The term security feels, for me, a bit too focused on keeping things as they are, rather than questioning if it’s really what we should be doing in the first place. For example, someone asked me if I thought the badger cull counted as “food security”; it is supposed to be about protecting beef and dairy stock after all. I’d be appalled if tried to frame it as “food security” though. Even momentarily putting aside the large question mark over whether killing badgers will protect cows, I really doubt badgers are putting our ability to feed ourselves at risk, only parts of our economy, which is meaningful and terrible for many people involved, granted, but isn’t quite something I’d dub “food security”. In fact, I’m surprised more people aren’t using the badger cull to pose larger questions around the industrialisation of cows. There are all sorts of policies, technologies and cultural practises around food production that could be done differently, if we wanted to. Similarly, I worry that the frame of climate and energy security may be over used to quieten debate about how we currently use our natural resources.

Maybe I’m wrong though. As I said, I’d be interested to hear what others think.

Something I am more sure about is my disagreement with a line near the end of Davey’s speech, where he said we’d “proven ourselves equal to the challenge” for other global threats like nuclear war. Really? We’re all sorted on that one? You sure? Because last time I checked, the Cuban Missile Crisis was a while back, but we’re still spending a shed load of money on Trident. Being in a slightly playfully indigent mood, I put £134,565 (wage of a cabinet minister) into a “Where does my tax go?” interactive and it popped up with just under £9 a day on defence and a bit under £2.50 on the environment*. CND has a little viz to show ‘how many cuts does it take to pay for Trident’, if you like these sorts of things. Do keep your eye on the top left hand corner for the rolling red text letting you know how much the UK spent on nuclear weapons since you opened the page.

You can decide for yourself whether you think nuclear weapons are a good or bad thing. Personally, I’ve never been entirely 100% sure about my own stance on this. But don’t for a moment think they’ve gone away. If Davey feels there is added urgency now to finally really try to engage the UK public with “climate security”, I wonder if he could find some funds freed up for such important work in disarmament. I’m inclined to think we’ve got enough environmental “security” issues happening in the seas around Scotland right now without keeping a nuclear bomb there too.

* These are vague because the Telegraph tool wouldn’t let me put a specific figure in. I set it at an annual salary of £134,650 and got £8.97/day on defence and £2.46/day on the environment. If you want details of cabinet pay on the House of Commons FAQs (along with the PM, select committee heads and other non-pay related facts). You can find average pay of everyone else at the Office for National Statistics.